Female students on MU's campus expect to wear what they want and come and go as they please. Different standards were in place however in the 1940s. Then, women could be 'campused' for weeks for a late return to their boarding house.
KBIA's Carly Riggs drew sampled from the State Historical Society of Missouri's Haskel Monroe Collection's oral history collection to express how moral standards were officially and unofficially enforced.
This piece is part of Reverberations, a series from KBIA that uncovers the wealth of historical information housed within the State Historical Society of Missouri's archives and its Haskell Monroe oral history collection from the 1990s.
This episode of Reverberations features the voice of:
- Mary E. Baker
Reverberations is a grant-funded, collaborative project from KBIA, the Missouri School of Journalism, and The School of Visual Studies, with support from Missouri Humanities. Special thanks to the State Historical Society of Missouri (SHSMO) for partnering with this project to digitize and explore the Haskell Monroe Oral History Collection.
Transcription of this episode is as follows:
Intro: This is KBIA News. I'm Trevor Harris. We are traveling back in time to the 1930s and 40s with Reverberations, a new series at KBIA. Producers have spent the past few months creatively engaging with recordings from the State Historical Society of Missouri's Haskell Monroe Oral History Collection to bring the past to the present in rich soundscapes.
Here, KBIA's Carly Riggs draws upon an archival recording from 1996 with Mary E.Baker about historic tactics for policing MU’s female students.
Faint big band music playing faintly in the background and getting quieter as narrator moves away from source. As narrator is walking the bells of Memorial Union’s clock chime. Narrator quickens their pace, but the door locks. Narrator sighs as they are locked out and knocks on door to be let in.
Carly Riggs: As freshman, I thought curfews and dress codes were a thing of the past once I entered college, but for female students at the University of Missouri during the 1940s that was a part of everyday life. During the ‘40s, female students lived in boarding house, private residences where students could rent rooms and share communal living spaces, and each night a house mom checked them in each night to make sure they didn’t violate curfew. As a history student with an interest in American law, I asked myself, how were universities able to this?
Carly Riggs: According to Historian Craig Forrest, from the 1860s through half of the 20th century universities operated under the legal doctrine of in loco parentis Latin for “in the place of parents.” Under this legal framework courts granted universities the right to act as a parent for their students allowing them to enact strict moral codes barring students from enjoying the same freedoms as adults, which fed into the long-standing belief a that moral guidance was an essential part of their students’ education. The crazy part, it wasn’t until the late 1960s and 1970s when students saw a drastic shift in university policies and the in loco parentis regime ended.
Carly Riggs: Mary E. Baker was a fine arts student at the University of Missouri during the 1940s, and one the keyways in loco parentis was expressed was through the practice of “campusing” female students and dress codes. Here’s what she had to say to Rebecca Morgan in an interview in 1996 about being campused and trying to get around the dress code.
Mary E. Baker: the housemother stood at the door and checked you in, and if you were a minute late, when you accumulated thirty late minutes, you had to go to the dean of women and you were “campused” for three weeks.
Interviewer: What is “campused” mean?
Mary E. Baker: “Campused means that you had to be in your rooming house and not leave. You couldn’t go to the library for three weeks, if you were “campused.”
Mary E. Baker: At that time, the girls weren’t allowed to wear jeans to class. But, if you were going on a field trip in Geology, or you were going sketching and the teacher was taking us to the Hinkson to sketch, then you could wear jeans and outdoor clothes. So I finally got a note from one of my art teachers and I carried it with me…but anytime any of the women teachers stopped me about my pants, I would say I was required to go on a sketching trip, and I got by with it for two or three months, before I got sent to the Dean of Women, but the Dean of Women was a very powerful person to the girls on campus.
Carly Riggs: Today the idea of wearing jeans isn't a violation of the dress code. It's a style choice. And staying out past 10:30 won't get you stuck in your dorm for three weeks. But to hear that wasn't always to experience for female students was quiet shocking. These were all freedoms I enjoyed as a student that I didn't think could be controlled by someone else.
Music: St. Louis Blues
Outro: In a piece produced by Carly Riggs, you heard archival audio from Mary E. Baker. It’s part of Reverberations, a project produced using sound from State Historical Society of Missouri's Haskell Monroe Oral History Collection. For more Reverberations, go to kbia-dot-org. I'm Trevor Harris, KBIA News.
Outside sources:
Dr. Crag Forest, interview
